Joakim Noah will continue to be a focal point for the Chicago Bulls but he will not be logging as many minutes as he did last season, coach Tom Thibodeau said Thursday.

"Jo's minutes will come down," Thibodeau said during the Las Vegas Summer League. "We got strung out there because Kirk [Hinrich] got hurt. We had to really run our offense through Jo. But the second half of the season we got his minutes down which was probably a good number for him. Luol [Deng] may come down a couple minutes but when you look at small forwards in this league, they all play those type of minutes.

I think limiting certain guy's limutes will be very important this year. I know it's been a topic of discussion in previous seasons and a major criticism if not the only critique Thibs receives from a lot of people.

We've been contenders for a few season's now, but come playoff time we never have a fully healthy roster.

I know that you can't control injuries and they are accidents and unexpected, but i think if Thibs spread out the minutes a little more it would increase the chances of our main guys being fresher and healthier come playoff time.

With the way Jimmy showed he can cover guys defensively as well as Lu, (if not better) there is no reason to run Lu 40+ anymore.

I was hoping for a young big to get picked up so Nazr wasn't the fallback option, but maybe a small ball lineup will be used a lot this year when Joakim isn't on the floor.

Taj can play the 5 against a lot of C's in the league and with Jimmy, Lu, and hopefully Snell, the length of our forwards and their rebounding ability will keep the lack of a real big man from biting us.

Play Butler more minutes at the 3 and Luol less minutes. Try and get Teague more minutes(showed improvement this offseason) and rest up Rose as much as possible. I still worry about Noah, Nazr just won't be able to rest him enough to get Noah's minutes down.

Really wish the Bulls could get Asik back. When the Bulls had a great bench they could rest their starters. If the Bulls got Asik back right now along with maybe Ronnie Brewer I think their bench this season would be better than the bench mob a couple seasons ago.